The Curious Lobster

by Richard W. Hatch

  The Curious Lobster

  Richard W. Hatch

  Illustrated by Marion Freeman Wakeman

  NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS

  New York

  THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

  435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  www.nyrb.com

  The Curious Lobster text copyright © 1935, 1964 by Richard Warren Hatch

  The Curious Lobster’s Island text copyright © 1939, 1966 by Richard Warren Hatch

  All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hatch, Richard Warren, 1898– author. | Wakeman, Marion Freeman, illustrator.

  Title: The curious lobster / by Richard Warren Hatch ; illustrations by Marion Freeman Wakeman.

  Description: New York : New York Review Books, 2018. | Series: New York Review Children’s Collection | Summary: Curious old Mr. Lobster has adventures in New England with his friends, good-natured Badger and grumpy Mr. Bear.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017061213| ISBN 9781681372884 (paperback) | ISBN 9781681372891 (epub)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Lobsters—Fiction. | Badgers—Fiction. | Bears—Fiction. | New England—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Animals / Marine Life. | JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Classics.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.H2817 Cur 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017061213

  ISBN 978-1-68137-289-1

  v1.0

  Cover design: Leone Design, Tony Leone and Cara Ciardelli

  Cover illustration: Nikki McClure

  For a complete list of titles, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:

  Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  This book is

  for Dick and Toph

  and for

  Charlotte

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright and More Information

  THE CURIOUS LOBSTER

  Mr. Lobster Decides to Travel Up a Certain River

  Mr. Lobster Discovers the Land and Also Mr. Badger

  Mr. Lobster Satisfies a Little of His Curiosity

  There Is Trouble Brewing

  Mr. Lobster Has a Desperate Time

  Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger Meet Mr. Bear Again

  Three Friends Go Fishing and Something Happens

  The Three Friends Almost Have a Picnic

  How a Picnic Disappeared and What Happened Next

  Mr. Lobster Takes a Very Dangerous Trip

  The Very Strange End of a Long Voyage

  THE CURIOUS LOBSTER’S ISLAND

  Mr. Lobster Faces the Winter

  A Serious Mistake Is Corrected

  Three Good Friends Meet Again

  Mr. Lobster Has an Idea

  The Explorers Meet with Disaster

  Mr. Bear’s Terrible Night

  A Mystery at Sea

  Mr. Lobster Saves the Day

  There Is a Stealthy Rustle

  There Is Serious Trouble

  An Enemy Is Changed

  The Pleasures of Exploring

  Mr. Lobster Flies Through the Air

  Mr. Bear Has a Great Shock

  More Troubles—But a Happy Ending

  Biographical Notes

  “IT IS A GOOD THING I CAME ALONG,” SAID THE PERMANENT PARTRIDGE.

  Mr. Lobster Decides to Travel Up a Certain River

  THERE is a certain place known to all the people and the older birds and four-footed creatures as Two Mile. It is a country place, where you can see a good deal of land and woods and sky all at once, which is quite impossible in a city place. Flowing right through the meadows of Two Mile is a certain crooked little river which is called Two Mile River, although it is really much longer than two miles and should be called Ten Mile River at least.

  If you go down this crooked river, which is the pleasantest way, or, if you are in a hurry and want to take a short-cut, and go over one of the Two Mile hills, you will come to a place where the little river flows along behind a wide sandy beach. And there you will find meadows wide and free, with no fences at all, where the salt tide comes in each day and there is a warm salty smell in the summer-time. Also you will find the gentle eastern slopes of the hills of that land, and these slopes are grown up with a fine forest, the kind of woods you like to go into looking for flowers hidden under old leaves, and where you can hear whisperings high up in the pine trees even when the wind is not walking along the ground at all.

  But the best part of this lovely place is that besides the river and the meadows and the woods there is also the old Ocean, that vast mystery which makes old men rub their eyes and shake their heads and wonder just as much as it makes children. For nobody knows all about the Ocean no matter how old he grows.

  At this certain place sometimes the Ocean is like a blue saucer upside down, with ships sailing from the middle right over the edge, and taking with them the fancies of anyone who is watching from the shore. At other times the dark winds ruffle the water, and the Ocean becomes a great disturbance, so that if you happen to be on the beach watching you are glad that you are safe on land where there are houses to go into instead of ships.

  Every day the Ocean comes stealing up the river and creeks and over the meadows until they are covered with blue water, and that is what men call the rising of the tide. Then, when all the clams and eels and crabs and small fishes have had their dinner, the Ocean very gently, and so slowly that you can hardly see, steals away again. That is what men call the falling of the tide.

  Now it so happens that at the bottom of this Ocean, about two miles from the beach and the hills and the meadows, there lived Mr. Lobster.

  Of course, every lobster has a hard shell, eight legs, two great big pincher claws, and a long, wide tail that folds up. So Mr. Lobster had all of these. More than this, Mr. Lobster was the biggest creature of his kind that had ever lived in this Ocean, and his claws were the largest and strongest and his shell the hardest.

  On the day when this story starts Mr. Lobster was at home and very pleased with himself. Also, he wanted to enjoy being pleased with himself as long as possible before taking up what he called the cares of life. By these he meant such things as finding food for himself, and keeping a sharp look-out for unpleasant creatures.

  Mr. Lobster considered that small fish and clams and such were pleasant creatures. They never harmed him, and they tasted delicious. Such things as whales and sharks, which are exceedingly careless about what they scoop in when they open their huge mouths, he considered unpleasant creatures. Sometimes he had to hurry to escape them.

  Mr. Lobster was pleased because he had just moved, and he had found himself a practically perfect house. It was between two big rocks on which grew a delightful he had found himself a practically perfect house. seaweed garden. Nothing could swallow those rocks, he knew; so nothing could bother him when he was at home.

  HE HAD FOUND HIMSELF A PRACTICALLY PERFECT HOUSE.

  “That,” he said to himself, “is what a home is—a place not to be bothered in.”

  That thought was so pleasing that he uncurled his tail and relaxed.

  The second fine thing about his house was that it had both a front door and a back door. If a pleasant creature swam past the front door Mr. Lobster could shoot out frontwards to meet him. If it was advisable to go out the back door he could fold up his tail with a snap and go out backwards even faster. He knew that not every creature could go both backwards and frontwards and be happy no matter which way he was going. That was another pleasing thought.

  He reflected that the seaweed garden would at
tract pleasant creatures. He thought of several that he hoped would come; for instance, a small flounder. With that thought he folded up his tail so as to be ready to leave on short notice.

  “You never can tell,” he thought, “when some pleasant thing will happen. It is wise to be ready.”

  You may be sure that Mr. Lobster was far too wise to be pleased with himself without due cause. Besides having a splendid house, he was sixty-eight years old. When he shed his shell the next time, he would be sixty-nine.

  “An uncommonly ripe age for a lobster,” he told himself. “It is no wonder I know so much.”

  He was really a charming creature when not too hungry, and he had several friends among the larger fish (that is, not too large) and such creatures as the sea urchins, which are a kind of walking pin-cushion and difficult to digest.

  Mr. Lobster owed his long life to a fortunate occurrence. One day a great many years ago, sixty-one to be exact, when he lived on some rocky bottom three miles further out to sea, he went for a walk. Suddenly he saw a large object which looked like a box resting on the bottom. But it was made of slats, so that he could look in and see that there was a large lobster much bigger than himself inside.

  “Good morning,” said Mr. Lobster. “That seems to be a large house you have, and a very fine one.”

  “It is not a house,” replied the other. “I came in here to get some fish.”

  Mr. Lobster was hungry. He looked carefully, but he could see no fish.

  “I hope it was good,” he said, feeling even hungrier.

  “It was delicious.”

  “Since it is gone, why don’t you come out?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “I am not quite so stupid as that,” came the reply. “I am waiting for more fish.”

  Mr. Lobster decided to wait too. Evidently this was a pleasant place. But he decided to wait outside. He thought that he might see the fish before it swam into the strange house. Also, he considered it unwise to be inside where the arrival of a fish might cause some argument. That would be decidedly unpleasant, for Mr. Lobster was then only eight inches long, and the other lobster was at least twelve.

  “This is a fine day,” he said. Since all days at the bottom of the Ocean are fine, he said this merely to be agreeable.

  “I’ve seen better,” said the other.

  “You have had more experience than I have,” said Mr. Lobster.

  “Oh, I’ve seen a good deal. I’ve traveled. Besides, it is only a matter of patience.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Lobster respectfully. “I don’t quite understand.”

  “A matter of patience, I said. If you are patient and sleep when it is bad weather, then you have only good weather. Patience is not doing anything about the things that annoy you. So is sleeping. So they are the same.”

  Mr. Lobster hoped the conversation would continue until he knew what it meant, but at that moment there was a strange interruption. The house with the big lobster in it suddenly stood up on its end, left the bottom of the Ocean, and sailed upward until it disappeared.

  Mr. Lobster waited for it to come back. After a few minutes it came floating down and landed on the bottom again. Mr. Lobster crawled over and looked in. There was some delicious-looking fish hanging in the house, but the other lobster was gone.

  Mr. Lobster drew his tail up very tight. That is the first thing a lobster does when he feels cautious. “That lobster,” he said to himself, “was very wise, and so he must have been very old. If he was very old, then the time may have come for him to be gone, for he certainly is gone now. And now I know enough not to go into one of those houses for fish unless I want to be gone. Surely, I am not old enough or wise enough yet to be gone.”

  So he did not go after the fish in the house, and all his life he had never gone into those houses, which he saw quite frequently on the bottom of the Ocean. That was how he had lived to be sixty-eight years old and was not gone yet.

  Even when he became sixty-eight he did not consider himself ready to be gone. “It would be absurd,” he said, “for me to be gone, for I enjoy living here on the bottom of the Ocean. Besides, there are several things I don’t know yet.”

  When Mr. Lobster didn’t know a thing, it was serious, for all his life he had been curious, and as soon as he heard about a thing he wanted to know all about it. One of the things he was the most curious about was the land. In fact, that was one of the reasons for moving to his new home, which was much nearer shore than his former home. He hoped to be able to investigate the land, a very mysterious place to him.

  He lived happily in his house between the big rocks and made several friends in the neighborhood, among them a skate, two old flounders who looked very tough and moved away from him whenever he came too close, and a large sculpin. The sculpin was mostly large fins and tail and horns, none of which was good to eat. So he had no need to be suspicious, like the flounders, and used to talk for hours on end with Mr. Lobster.

  Each day the sculpin disappeared for a long time. At first Mr. Lobster thought he had gone for good, as he knew that many fish went hurriedly upwards just like the lobster in the house many years ago. And they never came back unless they were very small, obviously being not wise enough or old enough to go and be gone. But the sculpin always came back from wherever it was he went.

  One day Mr. Lobster decided to satisfy his curiosity about the sculpin. “Because,” he said to himself with a great deal of wisdom, “satisfying your curiosity is what brings knowledge. Besides, it is a very pleasant thing to do.” So he asked the sculpin a question:

  “Would you mind telling me where you go each day? You are always gone so long that I am sure you must know some delightful place.”

  “Sir,” said the sculpin, “I proceed up the river.”

  The sculpin was so very ugly that he had to be dignified in order to win the respect of other fishes. He was so ugly that he should have carried a handkerchief and used it all the time—but of course he had no pocket for a handkerchief. He always took a formal tone, even when talking to Mr. Lobster, for he believed that such a tone preserved his dignity.

  “Do you go up the river and down it each day?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “Exactly.”

  “May I ask whether the purpose of your travel is pleasure?”

  The sculpin ruffled a large fin, and his horns stood right up straight with anger.

  “Only children and others who are irresponsible travel purely for pleasure. The aim of travel should be to procure food and knowledge. It is desirable to combine those pursuits.”

  “I beg your pardon. I quite agree with you,” said Mr. Lobster politely.

  “I procure my food in the river,” said the sculpin in a little more friendly tone.

  Mr. Lobster listened with respect to the sculpin, but he sometimes thought things about the sculpin which were not exactly complimentary. Right now he thought that the sculpin moved so slowly, being so dignified, that it did not seem possible that he could go up the river and down in a single day. Mr. Lobster hesitated about asking another question. It seemed that dignified people were the very worst about questions, and yet they were always the ones who knew so much you just had to ask them.

  Finally he said: “I should think that going up the river and down it every day would be a lot of work.”

  “One goes up the river when the tide goes in, and one comes down the river when the tide goes out,” said the sculpin in a very superior way. “It is not an arduous procedure.”

  “Oh, how very convenient!” exclaimed Mr. Lobster.

  “That is the reason there are tides,” said the sculpin.

  “It is?”

  “Exactly.”

  At that moment a shadow passed over the bottom of the Ocean.

  “I should be pleased to continue this discourse,” said the sculpin very amiably, but still in a dignified manner, “as I delight in instructing those who are ignorant. But I perceive that there is a shark hereabouts. In any case, it is four o�
�clock, and the tide starts to go in today at seventeen minutes past four. We are one hour later than Boston.”

  The shadow returned just then, and it was a very large shadow.

  The sculpin immediately squddled himself into the sand until he was completely out of sight. Mr. Lobster snapped his tail twice very quickly, and went into his house backwards at high speed.

  After the shadow had gone and Mr. Lobster had waited several minutes to be sure, he went out very cautiously, with his tail all curled up ready to snap at a moment’s notice. But the sculpin had gone.

  “He has started for the river,” thought Mr. Lobster. “It is a pity we are always an hour later than Boston, but I suppose nothing can be done about it. However, I have certainly increased my knowledge today, thanks to the sculpin. And I have a curiosity that fairly aches, now that he has told me about the river. I think that tomorrow I shall go up the river and increase my knowledge even more. Unquestionably, the river goes near the land. I am glad the tide goes in and out for the purpose of helping fishes to travel, and I shall go with it.”

  Mr. Lobster Discovers the Land and Also Mr. Badger

  THE NEXT day Mr. Lobster left his house just before seventeen minutes past four. As he was leaving he looked back, thinking that it really took a good deal of courage to leave such a safe place just to travel up a certain river. There were times when he preferred not to go too many tail-snaps away from home, and often, just when he was starting out on an investigation, the whole business would seem very unwise. Right now, when the time had come for him to start on his latest trip, going up the river seemed a risky undertaking.

  “You must have courage to satisfy your curiosity,” he said to himself, “and also to get knowledge.”

  So he kept going until he found the sculpin, who was resting in a lovely cool spot under some sea-trees, which are of course taller than seaweeds, and more suitable for fish of dignity like the sculpin.